Painful Questions: An Analysis of the September 11th Attack
This is a new article. As such is has been set to unassessed. It is classified as a stub, and categories require improvement. Category:Content taken from:http://www.erichufschmid.net/PainfulQuestionsTOC.html by Eric Hufschmid. chapter 1 http://www.erichufschmid.net/pdf/Painful_Questions_chapter_1.pdf The Various Investigations The Science Committee of the House of Representatives held a meeting March 6, 2002 to discuss the investigation of the World Trade Center collapse. Their report concluded that the investigation was “hampered.” One problem was that clean-up crews arrived the same day and immediately began disposing of the rubble. The result was: Some of the critical pieces of steel ... were gone before the first investigator ever reached the site. When investigators finally arrived at the site they discovered they were subservient to the clean-up crews: ...the lack of authority of investigators to impound pieces of steel for examination before they were recycled led to the loss of important pieces of evidence... Why was the investigation given such a low priority? Or should that question be phrased: Why was the disposal of rubble given first priority? Were New York residents simply too shocked by the attack and too concerned about finding survivors to care about saving the rubble for scientists? According to an article on December 25, 2001, the New York Times asked city officials about the destruction of the rubble: Officials in the mayor’s office declined to reply to written and oral requests for comment over a three-day period about who decided to recycle the steel and the concern that the decision might be handicapping the investigation. Their silence provides support for one of Congressman Boehlert’s accusations: I must say that the current investigation ... seems to be shrouded in excessive secrecy. With thousands of missing people, and with statistics showing that many would die within 24 hours, rescuers were under a lot of pressure on September 11th to find survivors quickly. Neither the emotionally charged rescuers nor the families of the missing people had time to carefully document the rubble. Rather, rescuers tore through the rubble as soon as the dust had settled, and they worked throughout the night. There were so many rescuers and they worked so fast that by the next morning Mayor announced that they had disposed of 120 dump trucks of rubble. 1 An analogy: Imagine clean-up crews arriving immediately after a murder. When detectives arrive the most important bullets have been sold to recyclers; the dead body has been buried; and most of the blood has been washed away. Also imagine that the cleanup crews have more authority than the detectives, so the detectives must ask permission to take photos and retain evidence. “I wish I had more time to inspect steel structure and save more pieces before the steel was recycled.” Professor Astaneh-Asl of Berkeley, at the Committee on Science hearing, March 6, 2002 Building 4 of the World Trade Center Courtesy of The CoStar Group, Inc.Destroying rubble was understandable during the first few days of the rescue. However, some portions of the rubble were smoking because of the high temperatures, and those piles of hot rubble should have been left alone. The only sensible place to look for survivors was in the cool areas. Consequently, all of the hot piles of rubble should have been untouched when the investigators arrived. By the seventh day it was extremely unlikely that people were still alive in the rubble. After one month looking for survivors was ridiculous. However, the frantic destruction of rubble continued month after month, regardless of the possibility of finding survivors. Furthermore, had been evacuated many hours before it collapsed, so there was no reason to look in that pile of rubble. By April of 2002 virtually all of the rubble had been removed. It appears as if these cleanup crews were so incapable of thinking that after having received orders to search for survivors, they continued to do so even when it made no sense. They also searched areas where nobody could possibly be found. Who was supervising this situation? Perhaps the words of Congressman Boehlert in the report of the Committee on Science are more accurate than we want to believe: ...there are no clear lines of authority .... No one is in charge... Was the New York City government simply incapable of dealing with such an unusual and extreme disaster? On January 25, 2002 vice-president Cheney called Senator Daschle on the phone and asked him to “limit the scope and the overall review of what happened.” Cheney did not bother to explain his intentions to the American people, but we have Daschle’s remark to CNN reporters: The vice president expressed the concern that a review of what happened on September 11 would take resources and personnel away from the effort in the war on terrorism, Daschle was not convinced that there was a shortage of resources or personnel, so four days later President Bush had a private meeting with him and asked him again to limit the investigation. Was the Bush administration correct that investigating the September 11th attack would hamper the war on terrorism? Consider that the investigation of the September 11th attack is actually two, separate studies: 1) The technical investigation. An analysis of the rubble by scientists to determine the cause of the collapses would not interfere with an investigation of terrorism. 2 “... there are no clear lines of authority .... No one is in charge...” “I must say that the current investigation — some would argue that ‘review’ is the more appropriate word — seems to be shrouded in excessive secrecy.” “...valuable evidence has been lost irretrievably, and blueprints were unavailable for months.” Congressman Boehlert, Chairman, Committee on Science, from the hearing on March 6, 2002 “...we are staffing the investigation with part-time engineers and scientists on a shoestring budget.” “The building performance assessment currently being conducted of the World Trade Center collapse is just that: an assessment, not an investigation.” “In addition, the of investigators studying the collapse has apparently been hampered in accessing building construction documents.” Professor Corbett, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, at the Committee on Science hearing, March 6, 20022) The analysis of the terrorists. This would be an analysis of where the terrorists lived, how they financed their operation, where they learned to fly, and how they took four airplanes off course without the FAA or military doing anything about it. The FBI and CIA would be involved in this analysis. Since the FBI and CIA also investigate terrorism, Bush could claim that there were not enough agents to carry on regular business and investigate the September 11th attack. An FBI agent sent a memo about suspicious foreigners to both FBI headquarters and to a New York FBI unit that was looking for Osama bin Laden. As the New York Times explained it: An F.B.I. agent in Phoenix told counterterrorism officials at the bureau’s headquarters last July that he had detected an alarming pattern of Arab men with possible ties to terrorism taking aviation-related training, and urged a nationwide review of the trend. No action was taken by the FBI. Were Bush and Cheney trying to protect the FBI, FAA, CIA, military, and/or the Bush administration from accusations of incompetence? On September 20th the Los Angeles Times reported that Israel had warned the FBI and CIA a month before the attack that terrorists were slipping into America to conduct “a major assault.” The next day the Times printed a brief correction that claimed the accusation was false. The “proof” that the original report was false was explained as: ...the CIA flatly denied the story, and FBI officials said they knew of no such advisory. This situation is as silly as a court dismissing charges against a person on the grounds that he “flatly denied” the accusations. The Times also offered this statement as proof that the original report was false: The Times has since learned that the accusation was based on a British newspaper report, not on independent information. Apparently British newspapers cannot be trusted. Does that mean we can trust American newspapers? If so, an American newspaper reported that a flight instructor in Minneapolis phoned the FBI to complain that a possible terrorist wanted to learn how to fly a commercial jet. I suppose the FBI would flatly deny that report, but perhaps the FBI and CIA are simply trying to suppress the evidence they dislike. Perhaps US government officials wanted to stop the investigation because they feared investigators would conclude that there were so many warnings and clues that even a troop of Girl Scouts would have been able to stop the terrorists. 3 “Do you realize how serious this is? This man wants training on a 747. A 747 fully loaded with fuel could be used as a weapon!” A Minneapolis flight instructor complaining to the FBI about the suspicious request of Zacarias Moussaoui. Imagine if you were to find this in the LA Times: Correction, Sept 12, 2001. A September 11th article reported that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attack. However, Osama flatly denied the accusation. The Times has since learned that the accusation was based on a British newspaper report, not reputable sources. The Times regrets the mistake. Osama is innocent. Building 5 of the World Trade Center Courtesy of The CoStar Group, Inc.On September 18, 2001 the Chicago Board Options Exchange announced that they were investigating the possibility that terrorists had profited from the attack. Officials said there was an unusually high volume of suspicious activity in which investors were betting that the price of United Airlines and American Airlines stock would drop. These suspicious trades occurred on each of the three business days prior to the September 11th attack, implying that some people learned of the attack a few days before it occurred. The Securities and Exchange Commission also began an investigation of these trades. (Incidently, nobody is denying that these investments took place.) The San Francisco Chronicle reported that 2.5 million dollars in profits were never collected by the investors. Were the investors afraid of getting caught if they asked for their profit? Nearly a year has passed since the attack, and we are still waiting for the results of the SEC investigation. Who were those investors? Were they friends and family members of the terrorists or Osama bin Laden? Did the investors disguise themselves so well that one year is not enough time to identify them? If so, why didn’t they collect their 2.5 million dollars in profit? There may be a sensible explanation for the investments and the inability to identify the investors, but the silence surrounding this issue is suspicious and fueling accusations. For example, some people accuse CIA officials as being the investors. If those accusations are correct, those officials decided to take advantage of the attack rather than try to prevent the attack. The earth’s oil supplies are dwindling, and no large pools have been discovered for years. The world’s last remaining source of oil is in the Caspian Sea area. Since no nation has yet shown an interest in developing alternatives to oil, all nations will need access to that Caspian oil as the Mideast oil wells run dry during the next few decades. The Caspian Sea could soon become the world’s most important piece of land. If the Russians get control of Caspian oil, they could create economic hardship for other nations beyond anything OPEC could get away with. Not surprisingly, American and British oil companies have been trying for years to put oil pipelines to the Caspian sea through Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the Taliban had refused to agree to any of the proposals, perhaps because they were waiting for a higher fee. Oil could be one possible reason that some people allowed this terrorist act to take place. Perhaps the CIA, the Bush family, or British government officials wanted to let the attack occur so they could accuse the Taliban of allowing Osama to operate terrorist camps in Afghanistan, then use that as an excuse to destroy the Taliban. The September 11th attack was devastating, but perhaps the CIA did not expect such damage. Perhaps they expected the planes to merely punch a small hole in the side of the towers, as an airplane did to the Empire State Building in 1945 when it crashed into it. Or perhaps the CIA assumed the military would intercept the airplanes. Or perhaps they were under the impression that only one or two planes would be hijacked. 4 “The potential prize in oil and gas riches in the Caspian sea, valued up to $4 trillion, would give Russia both wealth and strategic dominance.” “Central Asian resources may revert back to the control of Russia or to a Russian led alliance. This would be a nightmare situation.” “We had all better wake up to the dangers...” From an article in 1999 by Mortimer Zuckerman, the editor of U.S. News and World Report. He advocated getting control of the Caspian oil before the Russians get it. How many people in the U.S. Government would be tempted to take advantage of a terrorist attack to justify going after Caspian oil? Would any members of the British government be tempted to let the attack occur? Does OPEC frighten you? How would you feel with Russia in control of the world’s last remaining oil supplies? “oil companies...cannot begin construction a pipeline until an internationally recognized Afghanistan government is in place.” From the testimony of John Maresca, VP of Unocal Corporation at the House Committee On International Relations, February 1998. He is an example of people in the oil business who wanted the Taliban out of power. Would these people be tempted to allow the attack to take place?When the CIA saw how destructive the attack was, they may have panicked and put pressure on the government to suppress all investigations. Perhaps the unclaimed 2.5 million dollars in investment profits belongs to American citizens who became so upset over the incident that they wished they had never invested. Most people blame the collapse of the two towers on fire, not the airplane crashes. Building 7 collapsed also, and since it was not hit by an airplane its collapse has been blamed on fire. How did fire cause three, steel-framed buildings to collapse? No fire had ever caused a steel building to crumble, but on that day a fire did to three buildings what no fire had done before. Are there other office buildings, apartment buildings, or shopping malls that could also collapse from a fire? How should we design future buildings to resist fires? NIST is one of the government agencies that investigated the collapse of the towers. However, Dr. Bement, the director of NIST, did not seem interested in investigating Building 7. As he explained to the Committee on Science: ...NIST would possibly consider examining WTC Building 7, which collapsed later in the day. Notice that Bement did not say he would possibly investigate; rather, he said he would possibly consider investigating. Furthermore, Bement made this remark at a meeting in March of 2002. This was nearly six months after the building had collapsed, and most of the rubble had already been removed. How many more months would have to pass before he would “possibly consider” investigating? Was he waiting for all rubble to be removed so he could avoid dealing with the issue? Or was he simply following President Bush’s suggestion to “limit” the investigation? If another agency had conducted a thorough investigation of Building 7, or if the rubble had been saved until more personnel and resources were available, then Dr. Bement’s lack of interest would be understandable. However, no agency thoroughly investigated any of the buildings that collapsed and, more importantly, no agency made an attempt to save the rubble. Unless we figure out how fire caused these buildings to collapse, we will never know how to determine if a building is susceptible to collapsing from a fire. An investigation would also help us determine whether our building codes need revision. Unfortunately, the rubble was never properly analyzed. Rather, within hours of the collapse the crews began hauling the large pieces of steel to scrap yards and dumping the rest into landfills. Not only was this destruction of rubble irresponsible but, according to the editor-in-chief of Fire Engineering magazine, it was an illegal destruction of evidence: I have combed through our national standard for fire investigation, NFPA 921, but nowhere in it does one find an exemption allowing the destruction of evidence for buildings over 10 stories tall. 5 Compare the investigation of Clinton to that of the 9/11 attack: Ken Starr spent 40 million tax dollars investigating Clinton’s sexual activities. By comparison, there was so little money for the 9-11 investigation that some scientists volunteered to work for free on weekends. Perhaps half the population did not want to investigate Clinton’s sexual activities, but Republicans pushed for an investigation anyway. By comparison, most people want an investigation of the 9-11 attacks, but Bush has pushed to “limit” the investigation. Most people tolerate lies and secrecy in regards to sex, but Republicans demanded Clinton be honest about his sexual activities anyway. By comparison, most people do not consider lies or secrecy acceptable in terrorist attacks, fires, or building collapses, but our government is secretive and interfering with the investigation anyway. The FBI laboratory analyzed the stains in Monica Lewinsky’s dress. By comparison, NIST does not want to analyze the remains of Building 7. Building 6 of the World Trade Center Courtesy of The CoStar Group, Inc.There are two main reasons that we have laws demanding preservation of evidence. First, a proper analysis takes more than a few glances of the evidence by one person; it may require days or months of inspections and experiments, and individuals at different laboratories may be needed. Second, unless the evidence is preserved, we cannot perform further analyses if we have doubts about the original analysis, or if other questions arise in the future. So why did our government violate our laws? Furthermore, why are they allowed to get away with violating our laws? Why are they allowed to interfere with the investigation? Why are so few people in Congress complaining about these violations? Compare this tolerance of law-breaking with the frequent public condemnation of Clinton for violating our laws in regards to Monica Lewinsky. By January 2002 the editor-in-chief of Fire Engineering magazine reached his limit of tolerance. He published an article that month accusing the investigation of being “a half baked farce.” He also demanded: “The destruction and removal of evidence must stop immediately.” In support, other firemen wrote an article in which they pleaded with readers to send e-mails to our government to hold a real investigation. Unfortunately, everybody who complained about the pathetic investigation or the destruction of evidence was ignored (or worse; some were insulted as “unpatriotic” or “conspiracy nuts”). By April 2002 virtually all of the rubble had been destroyed. Now, with no evidence, determining how the fires caused those buildings to collapse is impossible. The American government responded to the terrorist acts by violating our laws and conducting a pathetic investigation. This atrocious behavior opened America up to accusations of corruption, incompetence, paranoia, stupidity, and conspiracies. One accusation came from the government itself. In the report from the March 6, 2002 hearing at the Committee On Science: The building owners, designers and insurers, prevented independent researchers from gaining access and delayed the investigators in gaining access to pertinent building documents largely because of liability concerns. Should we accuse the Committee On Science of being a group of “conspiracy nuts”? Before you answer that question, let’s look at a previous FEMA investigation. On February 23, 1991 a fire started on the 22nd floor of a 38 story office building at One Meridian Plaza in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although the fire was initially small, it spread to eight floors of the building, burned for 19 hours, and caused the deaths of three firefighters. FEMA investigated the fire and produced a detailed report of explanations, recommendations, and photos. They determined that 6 Should we demand that Bush follow the law, as millions of people demanded of Clinton during the Clinton / Lewinsky investigation? Here are a few of the remarks from back then: “We elect a President to enforce these laws.” From Sen. Michael DeWine’s impeachment of Clinton statement, February 12, 1999 “The President cannot be judged on a different standard than anyone else simply because he is the President.” Statement of Rep. Cass Ballenger on Impeaching Clinton, December 18, 1998 “We are a nation of laws....” Millions of people made that remark. “...the Office of Independent Counsel (OIC) hereby submits substantial and credible information that President Clinton obstructed justice...” From the report produced by Ken Starr, in the section “Grounds for Impeachment” On April 24, 2002, Federal Reserve Bank of New York estimated the cleaning and rebuilding to cost up to $29 billion. If $29 billion is not serious enough for a full investigation, at what price point is a full investigation granted?the fire started in a pile of rags that contained linseed oil, and that negligence allowed it to spread. Improperly maintained smoke detectors and improperly set pressure valves on water lines were cited as examples of negligence. The fire was finally extinguished when it reached a floor where the sprinkler system functioned properly. The report on the Meridian Plaza fire provides two interesting points: • First, the report proves that in 1991 FEMA was capable of properly investigating fires. Therefore, their pathetic investigation of the World Trade Center is either a deliberate refusal to investigate, or changes in our government have resulted in FEMA becoming an incompetent or ineffective organization. • Second, the report estimated $4 billion in civil damage claims as a result of the fire. Now consider the financial ramifications if three deaths and the destruction of eight floors of a building result in $4 billion in damage claims in 1991. How many billions are likely in 2001 when fires at the World Trade Center kill thousands, destroy the entire complex, damage the underground subway beneath the complex, and damage neighboring buildings? On December 13, 2001 the New York Times reported that the fireproofing materials in the World Trade Center had been in need of repairs for years, and that government officials insisted those accusations were simply exaggerations of salesmen who were trying to sell fireproofing material. While it is true that salesmen sometimes push the truth to sell their product, those reports of faulty insulation would be tempting to use as justification for a court case. Were landlords and insurance companies worried about thousands of lawsuits? The Committee On Science accuses landlords and insurance companies of “interfering” with the investigation, but those people may have done more than merely “interfere.” They may have pushed government officials into destroying the rubble. Additionally, city officials may have been worried about potential lawsuits. All of these people may have pressured Bush and Cheney into requesting a limit to the investigation. FEMA published their report in May, 2002. The title is World Trade Center Building Performance Study. It is report #403. The report contains a lot of interesting information about the buildings, but it does not explain their collapse. For example, on why the towers collapsed: With the information and time available, the sequence of events leading to the collapse of each tower could not be definitively determined. In that sentence they imply that they are innocent investigators who simply did not have enough information. They neglect to explain that the reason there is so little information is because the rubble was destroyed and the investigators were “hampered.” part 7 This is one of several drawings of pressure valves in the report FEMA produced about the fire at One Meridian Plaza in 1991. This report was so detailed that it explained how these valves work and how to use them properly. Obviously, in 1991 FEMA was capable of producing serious reports. Why couldn’t they do the same with the World Trade Center? The courtyard. Building 5 is on the left, Building 4 along the right. www.franksworld.comOn why Building 7 collapsed the report mentions: The specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time. …Further research, investigation, and analyses are needed to resolve this issue. Again they imply they are innocent investigators who need to do further research. However, by the time they published the report (May 2002), all of the rubble had been destroyed. Therefore, it was impossible for them to do further research. If FEMA had truly been interested in researching Building 7, they would have done the research before the rubble was destroyed, or they would have put aside some of the rubble for a later analysis. One of the excuses FEMA gives for their inability to explain the collapse is that the collapse was a unique event: As with any first-time event, difficulties were encountered at the beginning of the relationship between the volunteer engineering community and the local government agencies. Many disasters can be referred to as a “first-time event.” Rarely does an earthquake, fire, hurricane, tornado, airplane accident, chemical spill, or train derailment happen exactly like a previous disaster. FEMA is simply making excuses for their lousy investigation. Furthermore, why were they using a “volunteer engineering community” to investigate the collapse? At a meeting on October 24th, 2001, Edward DePaola announced that SEAoNY was looking for volunteers “to help collect data.” Why were they looking for volunteers near the end of October rather than in September? More amazing, why didn’t anybody ask the US Government for money to hire scientists and engineers to work full time? Is it possible that the management at FEMA, SEAoNY, NIST, and other agencies truly believed that 200,000 tons of rubble could be properly investigated with volunteers on a tiny budget? I doubt that anybody in management could be as naive as the people in control of the WTC investigation make themselves appear. I think these agencies either had no intention of investigating, or they were under pressure to “limit” the investigation. The FEMA report even supports the accusation that the investigators were hampered: Also, because there was no identification system in place for the first few days, it took up to 3 hours for SEAoNY volunteers to get to the command center from the outer perimeter of the site, a distance of less than six blocks. The area around the World Trade Center was blocked off to keep out the public, and checkpoints were set up at several entrances. The people who were destroying the rubble quickly passed through the checkpoints, but the investigators were often delayed for hours. Why would the lack of an “identification system” cause only the investigators to be delayed? Why wouldn’t all people be delayed equally? And why would the delays be so long? 8 “Some of the engineers are volunteering their time, and others are being paid. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is financing the effort, which will cost about $600,000” “...engineers communicate mostly by phone as they continue to hold their regular jobs” Compare their budget to the $40 million spent by Ken Starr during his investigation of Clinton’s sexual activities. Starr had full time help, not weekend volunteers. From an Associated Press article in January, 2002 describing engineers who were inspecting the rubble. “These pieces were accidentally processed in salvage yard operations before being documented.” A remark from the May 2002 FEMA report on the WTC. Some investigators wandered through the scrap yards in the hope of finding steel beams that would help explain the collapse. They marked the beams they wanted for the investigation with paint. However some of those beams were “accidently” destroyed. Since our government cannot properly investigate the collapse of three buildings, can we trust them to deal with our economy, city planning, health care, or education?The airplanes caused the towers to shake a bit upon impact, but after a few seconds the towers settled down and appeared to have survived. From a structural perspective, there were no signs that the towers were unstable; i.e., no noises from the building; no cracks developing, and no pieces falling off. As a result of the stable appearance, hundreds of firemen ran into the towers without fear, just as they had run into other steel buildings on fire. Their thoughts were to extinguish the fires and help people get out of the buildings, not whether the buildings would crumble. A short time later, without warning, the towers crumbled. In addition to the firemen, several photographers were injured, and at least one died. Were these photographers foolish to get so close to the towers? No. As with the firemen, the photographers had no reason to worry about the structural stability of the towers. Neither the photographers nor the firemen were fools; rather, they were victims of the world’s most bizarre building collapses. How could such a strange event not justify a serious investigation? Photos of Building 7 show an apparently conventional office building, but inside was a giant cavity that took up most of the first five floors. Two of the city’s electrical substations were inside the cavity, with a total of ten giant transformers, each 35 feet tall and 40 feet wide. The transformer inputs were 13,800 volts. The reason this strange situation came about is that the substations were already on the land. Due to the lack of vacant land in Manhattan, Building 7 was designed to sit on top of the substations and completely enclose them. To make the structure stranger (and more dangerous), the tenants of the building installed tanks of diesel fuel to power emergency generators in case the electric power to the city was cut off. American Express had a 275 gallon tank for their backup generator; Mayor Giuliani had a 6,000 gallon tank to supply three 500 kW generators for his Emergency Command Center; the investment firm Salomon Smith Barney had two 6,000 gallon tanks for their nine 1.725 MW generators, and the landlord installed two 12,000 gallon tanks for two 900 kW generators. If the FEMA report is correct, the building had the capacity to hold 42,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and the generators had a total capacity of about 20 megawatts of electricity. Not surprisingly, the New York fire department complained more than once that the situation was risky. The diesel tank and generator used by American Express were so small that they were placed together on the 8th floor. However, the other tanks and generators were gigantic, so they were separated from each other. The large tanks were near the ground floor, except for the Mayor’s 6,000 gallon tank, which was on the 2nd floor. The generators were on the 5th, 7th, and 9th floors. Pumps and pipelines carried the fuel from the large tanks up to small tanks that fed the generators. As you can imagine, if any of those pipelines were to leak, fuel could drip down as many as nine floors, and out into the street. Is the electric power supply in New York City so unreliable that office buildings truly need this much backup power capacity? 9 A view of Building 7 from the top of the North Tower. www.netfeed.com/~jhill Building 7 of the World Trade Center Courtesy of The CoStar Group, Inc.Apparently so; the FEMA report implies that Building 7 was a “normal” office building: An array of fuels typically associated with offices was distributed throughout much of the building. Do you know of any “typical” office buildings that have several pipelines to carry 42,000 gallons of diesel fuel to 15 or more generators with a combined capacity of 20 megawatts? Was something going on in Building 7 that nobody wants to admit to? Building 7 belongs in an industrial zone where people are casting metal objects or firing pottery. Why did the city allow such a hazardous situation in a public office building? Perhaps Mayor Giuliani, Salomon Smith Barney, and the landlord wanted the rubble destroyed to prevent investigators from blaming the collapse of Building 7 on their giant fuel tanks and network of pipelines. Part of the secrecy with Building 7 may be due to the CIA, Department of Defense, and Secret Service, all of which had offices in that building. The FEMA report claims that two 12,000 gallon tanks of diesel fuel belonged to the landlord, but the landlord does not show up as a tenant in the building, so it appears as if the landlord provided the fuel to his tenants. The FEMA report mentions that both the Mayor and the Secret Service took fuel from the landlord’s 12,000 gallon tanks, but the landlord may have supplied fuel and backup generators for some of his other tenants, also, such as the CIA and Department of Defense. Perhaps all the people involved with these diesel tanks pushed for the destruction of the rubble so that nobody would accuse them of being the reason the building collapsed. This would also prevent lawsuits against the CIA and other agencies. Almost everyone in the world was sympathetic towards the USA on September 11th. Unfortunately, during the ensuing months, the strange response from the US Government has caused some of that sympathy to be replaced with suspicion and anger. No sensible reason exists to limit the investigation of the World Trade Center collapse or to depend on volunteers to investigate; America has enough money and manpower to do the job properly. Secrecy about Building 7 cannot be justified, either; our government should not hide irresponsible and/or illegal behavior of landlords, the CIA, or the mayor of New York City. Additionally, there is no sensible explanation for why the Securities and Exchange Commission cannot identify the suspicious investors of airline options. The behavior of the US government leads me to conclude that some government officials are hiding something. I doubt that President Bush is so naive that he truly believes America has a shortage of investigators; certainly he has some other reason to interfere with the investigation. I also suspect that FEMA officials knew that destroying the rubble was both illegal and irresponsible; that FEMA deliberately allowed our laws to be violated. Something is going on, and it is not likely to be legal. 10 How much is 42,000 gallons of diesel? It would provide about 330,000 kilowatt hours of electricity. I use 100 to 300 kilowatt hours per month, so it would provide electricity for me for at least 90 years. How many decades could Building 7 provide you with electricity? You probably heard about Zacarias Moussaoui, the 9-11 terrorist, asking to learn how to fly a plane, but not take off or land a plane. The American Free Press reported on 3 June 2002 that the New York Times had a small article in which Norman Mineta, the Transportation Secretary, testified to the Senate Commerce Committee that Moussaoui never made such a statement. Who is telling the truth? …some individuals are put at risk for the benefit of the greater good. From The Final Report of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, by the Department of Energy, 1994. The DOE is justifying the secret experiments the US government conducted on American citizens. A more honest remark would have been: While it was immoral for Nazis to use people in medical experiments, it is righteous for Americans to do so.Judging by the number of accusations and complaints on the Internet, I am just one of thousands of people who suspect something is seriously wrong. Some of these people are angry, and some are encouraging rebellion. “Each act of civil disobedience will create a better America” That quote from Rick Stanley’s statement on January 9, 2002 reflects the attitude of many citizens. As of May 2002, Stanley was a Libertarian candidate for the US Senate in Colorado. Stanley and others complain about a variety of issues that revolve around the terrorist attack on September 11th, such as “The Patriot Act”; the proposal to allow the FBI to use torture; and the destruction of the World Trade Center rubble. Thousands of citizens are angry with the government. Ignoring them on the grounds that they are “conspiracy nuts” or “wackos” does not solve any problems. We should learn from Marie Antoinette that a government should deal with angry citizens, not laugh at or ignore them. Unfortunately, the only people who understand this concept are successful managers in private companies. A successful manager would not ignore anger among employees; rather, the best managers observe the attitudes among employees. They strive to keep the employees happy and their morale high. Compare that to the American government officials who not only ignore discontent, but they also have no concern about the morale of the citizens. The September 11th attack is a serious problem that our government should acknowledge and deal with. The Internet, some books, and a few paper publications are full of accusations, calls for rebellion, and conspiracy theories. The angry and suspicious people are spreading anger and suspicion to other citizens. Ignoring these people is not the way to create a healthy nation. In response to the charges of corruption and conspiracies, other citizens claim the nation is full of “conspiracy nuts” and idiots. However, these accusations only reinforce and divide the citizens. This fighting will hurt the morale of America, and that will hurt all of us. The more shocking conspiracy theories claim that the rubble was destroyed to hide evidence that explosives were used to assist in the collapse of the buildings. An example of this type of conspiracy theory speculates that the CIA, Bush family, and others decided to fake the attack in an attempt to make the world angry at the Taliban, providing us with an excuse to destroy them so that we could try installing a government that would give us access to Caspian oil. The US military action in Afghanistan is as suspicious as the superficial investigation of the World Trade Center collapse, thereby fueling conspiracy theories. Our government claimed that we bombed Afghanistan to search for Osama and his terrorist camps, but how do we locate Osama by flying high above the clouds and dropping bombs 11 Some government officials and private citizens advocate allowing the FBI to torture suspects. These Americans are responding to a terrorist attack by advocating we get rid of some of the freedoms that America was created to provide. “Our forefathers’ act of civil disobedience created America.” Rick Stanley, in his statement January 9, 2002, encourages citizens to do “...your very own personal act of civil disobedience, to make our country better.” Stanley is one of many people who suggest resisting the attempts by the government to get dictatorial control of the nation. The hotel (Building 3) at left, rear. The North tower is in the center, and the South Tower is at the extreme left edge. www.franksworld.comon people who had nothing to do with the September 11th attack? All we did with our bombs was kill innocent people and destroy some of the world’s most primitive villages. The goal of US military appears to be the removal of the Taliban rather than locating Osama and his training camps. After destroying the Taliban, the US military essentially gave Afghanistan to the Northern Alliance. There was no attempt to help the citizens of Afghanistan develop a sensible government. The suspicious aspect of our friendship with the Northern Alliance is that during the 1980’s our government gave billions of dollars in weapons and other aid to Osama and his terrorists to help them defeat the Northern Alliance and the Russians. Osama was not a “terrorist” back then, however. Rather, when President Reagan welcomed some of Osama’s Mujahadeen allies to the White House, he referred to them as “the moral equivalent of our founding fathers.” The Russians supported the Northern Alliance then, and they still support them today. So why in 2002 did we give Afghanistan to the Northern Alliance? Are we trying to become their new best friend? The Taliban, not Osama, has been the focus of the US military campaign. The US military never showed much interest in searching for Osama or his terrorist camps. Perhaps the US government believes the Northern Alliance will be so grateful to us that they will grant us access to Caspian oil. Americans are not the only people complaining about the US government. For example, in March of 2002 a Frenchman named Thierry Meyssan published the book The Frightening Fraud (or The Appalling Deception, depending on who translates it from French) in which he accused the US military of faking the crash of Flight 77 on September 11th. A remark by Thierry Meyssan in a recent interview could be an indication that the US government is creating enemies rather than impressing the world: …since the U.S. has used 9-11 attack as one of their arguments to launch an attack against Afghanistan and has asked the whole world to stand at its side in the war, this is no longer a purely American affair. The US military refuses to release the video from the security cameras that recorded Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon on September 11. We were practically forced to watch the airplanes hit the North and South Towers over and over and over again, so why not let us watch the video of the airplane hitting the Pentagon just one time? The US military has the largest supply of advanced weapons on the planet, but they claim to be afraid of a few terrorists with primitive technology. The implication is that the terrorists might see something in that video that will allow them to hurt America. Are the people in control of the US military truly this foolish? Or, is The Frightening Fraud correct that the military faked the airplane crash? 12 “That’s not what militaries do” Remark by General Tommy Franks to a group of international reporters in April of 2002 when asked about the failure to find Osama bin Laden. If our military is not searching for Osama, what are they doing in Afghanistan? What do militaries do? A book that should have been written View of a tower, from the ground. Mirko BalkePhotos shows a plume of dust rising upwards near Buildings 5 and 6 as each tower collapsed (Figure 1-1). This dust shot upwards so quickly that it passed the top of Building 7 (nearly 600 feet tall) within a few seconds. The collapse of the towers would have pushed dust into the underground shopping mall, parking lot, and passageways, increasing the air pressure underground. These plumes of smoke might be the result of the high pressure dust blowing open a hole in or near Buildings 5 and 6, and then shooting upwards. Building 6 (Figure 1-2) has two deep holes in it, and Building 5 has at least one mysterious hole. Were those holes blown open to release the high pressure? Many people tell us that we either support the Bush administration 100% or we are a part of the Axis of Evil. These people believe they are helping to unify America by making such remarks, but they are merely making themselves look like hypocrites. These people boast about our freedom of speech and our right to question our government, and at the same time they try to suppress both freedoms. Furthermore, the attitude that obedience to President Bush will create a unified nation is as ridiculous as one of your friends announcing that the group of friends will become more unified if you obey him without question. Obedience does not create unity, nor does it create happier people. Rather, it sets up the people for abuse. Citizens need to take an active role in their nation, not become obedient soldiers. Millions of Americans are appalled at the number of citizens who mindlessly followed Hitler and Saddam Hussein. Nevertheless, take note that Americans are behaving the same way if they refuse to look critically at their own government. The patriots who chant “USA! USA! USA!”, “Support George Bush!”, and “You are either with us or against us!” should be chanting “Think! Learn! Investigate!”, “Demand competent politicians!” and “It is OK in the USA to question the government!” 13 Facts from the CIA on Afghanistan (before the USA bombed it). The US military certainly studied these facts to prepare for the incredible danger they were facing: The majority of the population continues to suffer from insufficient food… the country suffers from enormous poverty, a crumbling infrastructure… Population: 26,813,057 Telephones: 29,000 Internet Service Providers: 1 Military expenditures: $n/a Literacy: 31.5% the military does not exist on a national basis… no functioning central government… world’s largest illicit opium producer… narcotics trafficking is a major source of revenue. The red arrow points to a large cloud near Building 5, 6, and 7 as the South Tower collapsed. This cloud shot upwards at very high speed. Figure 1-1 The courtyard of the World Trade Center www.franksworld.com ** unknown**The world improves when people discuss issues, not when patriots give blind obedience to their government. Blind obedience would be acceptable only if there were such a thing as a “perfect” government. The US government’s response to the September 11th attacks is worse than an embarrassment considering the anger it stimulated within America and internationally. Unless we deal with this issue we are no better than the people we criticize. We need to work together for beneficial causes, not fight with other. So let’s stop promoting the idea that patriotism requires blind obedience to President Bush. Let’s look closely at the attack and the collapse of the buildings. There are a lot of mysterious aspects surrounding the events on September 11th. If the US government had cooperated with an investigation, sensible explanations for everything might have been discovered. However, the government’s strange response to the attack is evidence that some people are trying to hide something. But hide what? And who wants to hide it? This book will explain some of the mysterious aspects of the World Trade Center attack that are providing fuel for various conspiracy theories. Those of you who do not believe anything illegal occurred should look for explanations for these mysteries. The inability to properly explain the attack is simply more evidence that we are witnessing an incredible scam. 14 The September 11th attack devastated America. If two dozen terrorists with razors could orchestrate that attack, what would happen if 5,000 terrorists with advanced technology attacked us? We should hope that 9-11 was a scam, and that thousands of people and many years of preparation were needed. The more difficult this scam was, the less likely it will be attempted a second time. The blue arrows point to two deep holes in Building 6. Did falling debris create those holes? Or were those holes blown open to release the high pressure in the basement? Figure 1-2 James R.Tourtellotte chapter2+ copy over